Thursday, 5 June 2008

It's business time. Ireland V New Zealand

Test time has rolled around and the knives will be out once again in the British press as Ireland prepares to play the All Blacks.

Hopefully, all the moaning about how NZ poach and plunder our way through the Pacific nations will not be such a talking point this time as half the All Blacks have now been poached and plundered to play in Europe.

In saying that, IMHO the only player the All Blacks will genuinely miss is Carl Hayman (and Nick Evans but that’s a whole other blog). Because let’s face it, Anton Oliver, Byron Kelleher, Chris Jack and Aaron Mauger were not exactly spring chickens knocking on the door of youth.

I do have a kind of theory as well that Chris Jack has always been our Achilles heel. Watch this space but maybe the era of shaky All Black lineouts could well be over now that Jack is out of the picture.

So perhaps the great European clean out of our rugby stocks is going to be a good thing in the long run. We will see come Saturday. It could be a clean break or it could be a disaster all over again if the Irish eat us for breakfast. (Don’t laugh, anything is possible). Especially looking forward to seeing how Anthony Tuitavake takes to the field. After so many years of Howlett and Rokocoko it is going to be great to have some fresh legs on the wing.

1 comment:

I justified the Sky UK subscription and sat through the test up here on Saturday morning (groaning at Stuart Barnes' commentary). Great to have a new seaon underway, and we won. Not butt ugly, but rusty, though still a win.

McCaw was brilliant. What a way to silence idiot critics!

England are next, and will be tough in the forwards. We should not underestimate some of their loosies - Rees, Croft and Haskell are very good players, loved watching Heineken Cup this year. Easter has gone home. They are still salivating over Sheridan & Stevens here, but I think our 'fatties' have never been as fit after 14 weeks of ELVs. Expect us to throw them to the floor and run them ragged.

Sad Cipriani got injured (horribly), he is sparky.

Damn it, girl - you were bang on about the line out. I doff my cap to you. Look forward to reading over 3N,